1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to telecommunication systems and, more particularly, to a method in a radio telecommunications network of notifying a subscriber that a call transfer feature is activated.
2. Description of Related Art
In existing radio telecommunications networks, a mobile subscriber who activates a call transfer feature receives an immediate indication that the feature has been activated. Thereafter, however, the subscriber must remember that the feature is activated. There is no indication, for example, upon subsequent powering up of the mobile station that the call transfer feature is activated. Thus, the feature may be activated while the subscriber is not aware of this fact. This can be very inconvenient, especially when immediate call transfer (or unconditional call transfer) is activated. In this case, calls terminating to this subscriber are transferred to a pre-defined forward-to-number (C-number) without the subscriber's awareness.
In the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 5,077,789 to Clark and the inter-system signaling specification ANSI-41 (6.9.2 CNIR Interaction with Call Forwarding Unconditional (CFU)) both teach methods of providing an abbreviated alert signal to a subscriber's phone when a call is forwarded to another number. However, these methods do not provide the subscriber with an indication that a call transfer feature is activated as soon as the mobile station is powered up, and for the entire time the mobile station is turned on. With the existing methods, the subscriber is only alerted after he has missed a call. In addition, the existing methods utilize valuable network resources such as paging resources and voice channels to page the mobile station, obtain a response, and send the abbreviated alert signal.
In order to overcome the disadvantage of existing solutions, it would be advantageous to have a method of notifying a subscriber that a call transfer feature is activated whenever the subscriber powers up the mobile station. Such an indication would remain active for the entire time the mobile station is turned on, and would provide the subscriber with the ability to deactivate the call transfer feature prior to having any incoming calls inadvertently transferred. In addition, the method would not utilize network paging resources or voice channels. The present invention provides such a method.